Tackling Your To Do List
As a business owner, running your business can be overwhelming at times. If you are watching this video, you must be feeling the pressure and are looking for some relief.
If you remember the Bob Newhart show, there was an episode where a lady with a phobia of being buried alive in a box came into the office to get cured. Bob quickly assesses her situation and gives her great advice in 2 words – STOP IT!
You see, the definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results. Most times, the traditional “To Do” lists don’t work and only manage to create additional pressure and feelings of guilt when they are not accomplished. This sets us up for disappointment almost daily as we never get everything done – right?
So what are we to do? Start with, think about your overall mission & goals for the business. This foundational step is generally missing. Yet without it, we don’t have a focus for our priorities.
I will give you an example: For HireSmart – our overall goal & mission is to get more virtual assistants working.
When I look at all the things I COULD DO, I ask myself if this task supports the mission. Will it help me get more VAs working? If it doesn’t – it isn’t even considered.
So now, there are still many things on the list that move my business toward the goal.
Every week, I look at “the list.” I evaluate the items against the business goal and ask myself which of these items is going to have the greatest impact on that goal & I take the top 10-15 tasks that have the biggest impact, and I assign a time limit for that tasks and SCHEDULE IT in a time slot for that week. Each day I have 2-3 items scheduled that have a major impact on the business goals.
By doing it this way, I am always moving the business forward toward my goals. I find all the other stuff tends to get done around the edges.
If you want to watch the Bob Newhart Video – Stop It! You can watch it here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQGzeiYS_Q
Cheers!